Losing Weight In Public — Week 4

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Me, looking at pie.

Week 1 weight: 305 pounds
Last week’s weight: 297 pounds
Current weight: 295 pounds
Weight lost since last week: 2 pounds
Total weight lost: 10 pounds

My fourth post. I am a stranger in this land of 200s. Mysterious and frightening be their ways. They eat and then they stop! Their bathroom scales, they do not break! At first, I was but a scared traveler in their midst, scurrying from shadow to shadow, nibbling as I went, afraid at any moment they would see me and shout, “That fat guy has no clothes!” What are they doing in my bathroom at 7 a.m.? I DO NOT KNOW!

Last week’s big successes:

Ok, I’ll just say it right here: last week was mostly great. We had one round of catering at the office and I didn’t eat any of it. Also, though I went out to a few restaurants, I didn’t order any dessert. Yay for me, please pass the ketchup.

Last week’s failures:

Isn’t the world more fun when you don’t blog about your mistakes? I sure think so. Ok, so last Friday at the team potluck was a total fricking bust. I tried like 4 different desserts, and then I tried them all again. I had carbs up the wazoo. How they got up my wazoo, I have no idea, but they were there when I woke from my sugar coma. Really stupid on my part, and it’s a miracle I lost any weight at all. If anything, that shows you can screw up and still succeed, but therein lies a problem. Now I know I can screw up and succeed. Pandora has left the building, and she’s carrying an open box of Twinkies.

This week’s coming challenges:

I can’t think of anything specific, except for the possibility of a meetup group of some sort. Oh yeah, we might go to a seafood place for happy hour. I can eat seafood until my head falls off. Woot.
One challenge we should go ahead and acknowledge: desserts. Every week of this whole “Losing Weight In Public” thing has shown I can’t stay away from them. So it’s safe to say that’s my biggest challenge this week: not eating desserts.

Conclusion:

I’m really looking forward to getting my eating under better control. I need to plan better. I need to figure out why I do the things I do. Am I trying to escape? If so, from what? Am I trying to fill up a hole of some kind? Or am I just a human with millions of years of evolution weighing me down, screaming, “Eat before you starve! Eat before you starve!”

I’d like to blame it all on Darwin, but you know what happened to him?

He died.

See you next week!

Losing Weight In Public — Week 3

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Sad little fat man.

Stuffing my face with carrot cake. Surprisingly skinny-looking photo. But then, I’m sitting, and I’m 6’5″.

Week 1 weight: 305 pounds
Last week’s weight: 300 pounds
Current Weight: 297 pounds
Weight lost since last week: 3 pounds
Total Weight lost: 8 pounds

Yes, I’ve renamed the series to “Losing Weight In Public.” I think it sounds nicer, and I think it’s more descriptive (inspired by Dean Wesley Smith’s “writing in public” series). Hope you agree!

I’m going on the third week of the experiment. So far, I’m fairly happy. I could be making better choices, and I could prepare myself better for various challenges. I have to get out of the mindset that eating is recreation (vs. fuel, which it is).

It’s not so much that I love food, it’s that I like eating. For other people, maybe that’s healthy. For me, it’s just a minefield full of cobblers and cheesecakes and mashed potatoes.

Last week’s big successes:

1) Totally, totally, totally ignored the catering they brought in (totally!). This happened twice. Once with begals, the next with these really great sandwiches. Sigh.
2) Someone on the team brought in red velvet cake or something, super delicious looking. I didn’t even taste it.

Last week’s challenges:

As you can see from that sad photo my wife took, I ate something I shouldn’t have. Carrot cake, at the Outback. Looking back on that dessert, I barely remember it, other than that I enjoyed it. One thing I remember is it being really sugary, particularly the icing. I remember thinking, “If I could just have the cake part, that’d be better, because the rest just kind of overpowers it.”

That’s one thing folks new to low carb will discover: sweet stuff tastes too sweet, if you go without it long enough.

Despite the occasional screw-up on my part, my taste buds have adjusted. For example, I can’t drink Coke anymore (Dot can’t either). And I don’t like artificial sweeteners as much. I still like the occasional Diet Coke, though (with ice), so I’m not completely cured.

Another challenge last week was eating over at our friends’ house. Pork loin, mashed potatoes, carrots, and collard greens. I should have stuck with the pork loin and collards. I shall say no more.

The rest of the week was mostly fine (several drinks on Friday with the meetup group — had a blast).

I realize that I can’t keep screwing up as these weeks start accumulating, because my body’s going to be very miserly when it comes to giving up pounds. That said, I’m optimistic I can get fully back into the swing of things.

This week’s coming challenges:

Catering will always be a challenge, so long as I’m working for a living and not going full time as a writer…

Ok, yes, that’s BS, I’ll turn myself in right now. There are plenty of overweight people out there who don’t work under the constant threat of catering. I have to remember that no matter where I am, I need to be vigilant and always have a plan.

One challenge I need to plan for this week is: my team is having a potluck. Oh. My. God. Potluck?!?! Potlucks are like my favorite thing in the world! If I don’t pig out, that’d be insulting to everyone there, right? Talk about a permission slip to screw up!

I have two options here:

  1. Come with some low carb food I’m happy with and just stick to that (and maybe have anything else there that’s low carb, like salad or whatever, and in the right portions).
  2. Don’t go.

I’m seriously considering option 2, because I don’t trust myself to attend without messing up. I’d just get there and start lawyering with myself, making deals like, “If I pig out now, I have all week to fix it, and didn’t I mess up last week and still lose weight? See, I can do it!”  Pretty lame, huh?

Ok, that’s enough whining. Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

John’s Little Problem — Week 2

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cobler

Cobbler: omg, so good…

Beginning weight: 305 pounds
Weight lost since last week: 5 pounds
Current Weight: 300 pounds

Today begins the second week of my big fat experiment. Last week had a lot of challenges, but I seem to have done all right. If I hadn’t, I would have posted anyway, because I said I would — and that looming embarrassment kept me more or less on track all week. Thanks anonymous Internet people!

Challenge 1: Catering To My Needs

Last Tuesday, my job had three meetings with an unholy amount of catering, and they stacked it all in the common area when they were through. Worst of all, they had my favorite thing in the world: cobbler, in two flavors — peach and apple. Who doesn’t love apple cobbler? Crazy people, that’s who. I avoided the cobbler and settled for a few pieces of chicken (breaded … ugh, I know).

Challenge 2: Dining And Whining

The wife and I went out a few too many times last week (see her Sunday blog post). The problem, I think, is we don’t have a lot of friends in the area. Ok, none, really. Our closest friends live about thirty miles away, and we only see them about once a month, tops. So the wife and I tend to go out. There’s background music, atmosphere, drinks-drinks-drinks (whiskey or wine, not beer), food we don’t have to make, cheerful waitstaff, etc. And way too many opportunities to over indulge.

Challenge 3: Revenge Of The Cobbler

On Saturday, I ended up breaking down and eating some blackberry cobbler on one of our little outings. I felt bad about that. Not the end of the world, and not in unlimited amounts (like those giant vats at the office…), but definitely the end of ketosis for about 24 hours. Sigh. Something to work on.

This Coming Week…

This week’s challenges are mostly unknown, except for Friday. The wife and I joined a meetup group that’ll be going to a bar for happy hour. “Are you out of your mind?!” you say. Not entirely. We’d probably go out anyway at some point. At least this way we can meet a few folks, make new friends. Also, it’s scheduled fun — for Friday. Not “I’m bored, let’s go mess up” fun three days in a row. And we do need more friends in the area. We’ve joined a few other meetup groups as well. Each will have its food challenges. One’s a bowling group. The other’s an eclectic group that does all kinds of odd things, from board games to happy hours to going to museums.

I’m feeling pretty good about where I am. Five pounds is an awful lot to lose in a week, and I’m sure next week will be more realistic. We always lose the most weight in the first week of a “diet,” whereas “lifestyles” produce less spectacular (though longer lasting) results.

See you next week!

John’s Little Problem – Day One

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2Since my last weigh-in, I’ve gained 3 pounds, and now weigh 305.

At the urging of my overworked plumber, I’ve decided it’s time to take my weight loss seriously. Ok, that was a joke. The first part, not number two.

*cheers, laughs, and cries of encore, encore*

Everyone likes a jolly fat man.  Especially coroners and morticians. Which is why I’m writing this post, quite frankly. I just turned forty-five, I’ve had a small scare recently with some very odd heartburn that’s lasted way too long, and I’m worried about my health. The doctor says the heartburn is probably some damage at the bottom of my esophagus, so any amount of acid (even normal) is probably the cause of it, and I just need to heal. But here’s the scary part: if it doesn’t heal, he’s asked that I come back to find “other causes.”

Yeah. Scary.

How I Got Here

A few years ago, after my wife, Dot, quit her job and got serious about her weight loss, I got serious too and did the low-carb thing with her. We both lost a lot of weight right off. She lost like fifty pounds and I lost about the same.  Then she kept losing, and for two years I stayed right around three hundred pounds.

There are a few reasons for this. One, I work in an office, and however well I ate at home, when nobody was around to tell me “no!” and swat me with a rolled-up newspaper, I’d go to town on pizza, cakes, catered sandwiches, cookies, chips, and doughnuts. Sometimes I’d resist and eat what I’d packed for lunch that day. Other times I’d eat what I packed that day and go to town anyway. Still other times I’d go out and pay for lunch.

“But isn’t going out to eat super expensive?” you hypothetically ask.

“Not usually,” I reply to the suppositional you.

At the office I work at, there are always vendors or staffing reps to take me out for free, or team-building outings to all-you-can-eat places, or vendor-paid happy hours with both drinks and appetizers. And yeah, sometimes I’d just go out on my own, rather than stick to the lifestyle I’d turned into a diet.

So basically, what I’m saying is: I can’t be trusted.  And that’s where you, gentle Dot-2-Trot blog reader, come in.

Confessing My Three-chin Sins

For the next however-many months, years, whatever, I plan to show up here every Monday and confess my eating sins (if any) and successes (if any). I don’t plan on going into a lot of sciency stuff, like Dot, but I may post something I find once in a while. I like the science too, but before I start with the talking, I’d like to pack a little success under this overstrained belt of mine … kind of thing.

Each week, I’ll post my current weight and maybe talk a little about the challenges I overcame, or the positive things I’m doing. For example, I plan to join the free gym at my job—not to lose weight, but to gain health. I’ve noticed in the past that when I work out, I’m more likely to pay attention to my eating, and that results in positive change.

By confessing on my wife’s blog like this, I hope to keep myself honest and add a little public pressure/shame to my daily grind. Dot can’t watch me all the time, but I know you guys will be there the following Monday to give me grief if I screw up, because that’s what anonymous friends on the internet are for.

I’m really looking forward to it…

The war between Ireland and the United States

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day (it’s magically delicious):

Hubby Guest Post: Watched “My 600-lb Life — Penny’s Story”

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Dot and I have watched a number of episodes of “My 600-lb Life”.  We’ve found many of the stories incredibly encouraging, and they’ve helped shore-up our own determination to lose weight.

And then we watched “Penny’s Story”.

The Internet can be a nasty place, so I won’t engage in the meanness burning up the message boards and comment sections of articles about this disturbing episode. Suffice to say, unlike every other story on this wonderful show, Penny really knows how to twist the screws.

A year after gastric bypass surgery, a patient weighing 600 pounds can expect to have lost as much as 350 pounds. In Penny’s case, in the year following her surgery, she’d gained weight. Her friends and family had paid for the surgery. It wasn’t stated in the show whether her disability money, her insurance or remaining charity was used to pay for her four months of hospitalization.  Regardless of who was paying for it, nothing was working.

With all this opportunity to succeed as a backdrop, it was particularly hard watching her sneak food throughout the entire episode. It was painful to witness the child she loves have to visit her in the same bed she declared is “my bed, my bathroom, and my dinner table.”

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Carbivorous Rex

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He stalks the fifth floor every Friday, nostrils flaring over the cubical canopy in search of an elusive scent. His heavy footsteps cause little cups of water to ripple as many as four cubes away.  Will there be bagels today?  Doughnuts?  Will there be both?  Does coming in twenty minutes late mean he’s stuck with the pink doughnuts with the weird sprinkles? Or will he have arrived in time for the jelly and chocolate cream-filled tasties?  He’s in luck: two doughnut boxes sit on the little table next to the VP’s office, closed and stacked on top of each other.

His breathing quickens as he tears towards his prey.  Behind him, someone shouts, “John, did you get my email…” but it sounds like “bla bla bla” and he pretends he doesn’t hear it.  An intern steps out of her cube but ducks back to avoid being trampled.  He arrives at the box and opens it, grabs one of the paper plates and loads a chocolate cream and a jelly onto it, but no more than that.  He’s on a diet.

For the last six months, the above scene played out every Friday.  Oh, did I say Friday?  How about every other day, at least, because there’s always random doughnuts and cakes and Panera  sandwiches and cookies from meetings with vendors and potlucks at my job. All the frickin’ time.  But that’s not the best part–I get to blame all this “bad luck” for my failure!  It’s the job causing me to fall off the program, not me. I’m just a victim in all this, why not have a doughnut?

For the last year, my weight loss program has focused on low carb eating.  Specificaly: the Atkins diet.

“But John L. Monk,” you say. “I thought Atkins was supposed to be easy.  You make it sound hard!”

Easy, huh?  Let’s get real for a second: 160 million years of mammallian evolution telling you to shove everything tasty into your mouth before you starve to death is not something that can ever be overcome easily. It takes work.

In my case, it only took 3 days of work.

That’s right.  I sit here typing this up with no particularly strong cravings for doughnuts or ice cream or bread or pasta or rice or baked potatoes.  Would I want a doughnut if one appeared next to me?  Yeah.  Am I telling Dot we’re almost out of paper towels so I’ll have a reason to go to Giant and snag an eclair (they’re big) from the glass-enclosed Fortress of Awesomeness back by the deli?  Nope.  I’m actually not that hungry.  That’s one of the great things about Atkins–after a few days, a week in some cases, your craving for carbs goes away.  This is how I lost 60 pounds last year.

But natural selection…she’s mean.  It was around Christmas that I went to a fast food place and got a burger with the bun, and it’s been downhill ever since.  In my case, I can’t screw up or the cravings come back. So here’s my advice to anyone wanting to try Atkins: don’t screw up.

Not so easy or pleasant at first, I know–but it has to be better than turning into a monster at work and scaring the interns, right?

(Big thanks to my wife Dot for letting me guest blog! Did you see that picture she posted of herself?  She’s one hot momma.)